


Radio, houses, everything.

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Series: 2014 Advent Calendar for a Filthy-Minded Athiest [10]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Adultery, Coercion, Drinking, M/M, Promiscuity, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2749841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>How to Marry a Millionaire</i> AU in which Liam is Eben, Zayn is Loco, and no one has the measles.</p><p> </p><p>Advent calendar challenge: Snowed in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radio, houses, everything.

At the station, the wind is stirring little eddies of snow up onto the platform. Liam's surprised the train came the whole way. The temperature drops significantly between here and the last station all the way down in the foothills, and the line trucks that make the drive up and down the track to look for freezing of the rails aren't as regular as they used to be.

Nancy, the ticket clerk, tells him it'll be the last train for a while if the weather does as predicted. Liam makes sure to ask if she needs a ride home before he goes to collect Mr. Buckner and his luggage.

It's not out of season for Mr. Buckner to be here. The ridge is beautiful this time of year even if only as viewed from the comfort of a plush chalet. For hunters and skiers, there's no better time to come. But Liam doubts very much that Mr. Buckner is going to be doing anything out of doors, once he gets a look at what he's brought along. Who he's brought along.

The man looks to be around Liam's age, maybe a few years older. Handsome in a way even Liam would describe as "striking." He's lean through his layers of knit and leather, all angles and planes. Dark eyes and darker hair. He looks like he'd have been more comfortable staying down in the foothills or, better yet, in whatever city unleashed him.

"Payne," Mr. Buckner calls, as good as a greeting.

Liam smiles and grabs up a suitcase per hand. "My dad wasn't feeling well this morning. You'll have to make do with me," Liam explains. "Hope you don't mind."

Mr. Buckner waves it off. He touches the small of the guy's back to get him moving. "Nothing serious, I take it?"

"Just a cold."

Liam takes care setting their luggage in the back of the truck. There are bits of bark and lichen ground into the loops of the carpet from transporting a load of firewood yesterday. His father details the truck before picking Mr. Buckner up, but he only gave them most of two days notice this time. There wasn't time to get everything done.

"Good to hear," Mr. Buckner says, and pulls open the door for his guest, urging him into the back seat and out of the snow with a hand on his spine. He doesn't sound bothered.

Liam takes the roads as carefully as he can but he can't avoid the bad patches. The roads up here are narrow, carved right into the mountain. There's no shoulder to edge onto if the blacktop is iced over, just a sheer drop over the side. He drifts as calmly as possible, when they hit patches of black ice.

In the back seat, Mr. Buckner and the man don't seem to notice. Mr. Buckner is too busy telling him about the hot tub and the cedar wood sauna, and the man is too busy looking out the window, giving only the occasional indication that he's listening. Mr. Buckner doesn't seem bothered by that either.

It's coming down hard by the time they finally make it to the chalet's white concrete drive. Small flakes so dense Liam is all but hunched up against the wheel to see. At least he had time to put salt down.

The man turns in his seat to eye the three car garage, the carefully placed copse of juvenile evergreens, the rustic hand-carved rail on the upper deck. He frowns a bit as Mr. Buckner leads the way up to the house.

"Are we the first ones here?" he asks, throwing a glance at Liam, who has to put down the luggage to unlock the door. Mr. Buckner doesn't come to the chalet enough to warrant keeping a key himself. Much easier to let the Paynes worry about that.

Mr. Buckner touches the man again, his elbow this time, to usher him through the door. He lets himself be herded into the house, off of the snow-covered porch and onto the heated floor, but he cranes around to keep Mr. Buckner in his sights.

"Are we?"

"Seems that way," Mr. Buckner says.

Liam sets the suitcases down with a crack of plastic casters on polished limestone. "I only made up one of the bedrooms, Mr. Buckner," he says. "Like you asked."

He would hate to be on the receiving end of the look that the man is giving Mr. Buckner now. That kind of intensity in a glare probably causes cancer.

Liam pockets his keys and carries the luggage upstairs. On his way up he can hear the man tearing into Buckner, his voice coming out at damn near a growl. Liam sets the suitcases down just inside the door of the master suite – he'd go in further, place them near the bench at the foot of the bed, but his boots are wet and the carpet is white. He sticks to the wide plank wood floor and the darker runners in the corridor.

Downstairs, Mr. Buckner is cajoling. Liam's never heard him bargain before. Hell, Liam's not sure he's ever heard him ask before. Mr. Buckner is the kind of guy who tells.

"You told me it was a group thing," the guy says.

Mr. Buckner all but throws his arms up. "Would you have agreed to come if I hadn't?"

"No. And I'm not staying, either."

Mr. Buckner sighs. "Be reasonable, Zayn. We only just got here." He reaches out for him, but the man yanks his arm away.

"Screw you. No. I'm leaving."

"Not soon," Liam says, and Zayn takes a step backward as he rounds on him. "The roads are too bad to risk."

"We got up here."

Liam spreads his hands. "Barely. It'll be worse going down."

Zayn looks between the two of them with something like fury in his eyes. Liam doesn't blame him.

"I'll make up another room," he offers.

"Don't bother. You're driving me back as soon as the snow stops."

The snow isn't expected to stop until tomorrow afternoon, but it's probably best that Zayn doesn't know that. The wait would only be that much worse if he did, and there's a chance that it will let up before then. Not much of a chance, but it's better than nothing.

Liam jerks his thumb over his shoulder, toward the top of the stairs. "Linen closet's the second door on the right, if you change your mind," he says.

Zayn drops himself onto the couch, feet set wide apart and arms crossed over his chest. Mr. Buckner moves toward him again, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, and Liam makes himself scarce before he has to listen to another argument, or worse.

Liam goes back outside to get the overnight bag he stashed in the truck. He's been keeping a hawk's eye on the weather reports since Mr. Buckner called to give the order to get the house ready. Liam knows how quickly the drifts can pile up against the bare rock face, wide enough to cover half the road. He knows where the snowmelt flooding gets so deep the water can come right up to the door of the truck. He knows when it's better to keep your head down and dig into the pantry.

When he comes back in, Mr. Buckner is gone already but Zayn is still sitting on the sofa. Liam hovers just in his periphery, watching. He can't have been staring for more than a couple seconds, but Zayn looks over with accusation on his face. Liam smiles at him for lack of anything better to do.

"Is there someone else I can call?" Zayn asks.

Liam sets his bag down and takes off his coat. "We were driving right on the edge of the storm on the way here. If someone else did make it up, we'd just have to make up another bed. I'm sorry."

He really is. It could have been a nice getaway, if not for Mr. Buckner. That might not be entirely fair. Liam's known Mr. Buckner since he was eight, when he bought the chalet and hired Liam's father as caretaker. He doesn't known Zayn at all.

Zayn turns his head and goes back to staring at the empty fireplace.

Liam drops his coat on top of his bag. "Let me light that for you," he says. He has to offer him something. Someone should at least be trying.

He stacked up some logs nearby when he brought the firewood up, but he didn't do anything else. Now he thinks he should have. It would have saved him the sense of his back being stared at while he crouches down to build the fire. He crumples up newspaper and makes a grid from the kindling and lays a few small logs over them. He feels sort of like he's being judged, but also like he's showing off a bit doing it. He feels like a jerk.

"Rugged," Zayn says, after the fire's caught and Liam's stood upright, brushing his hands off on his jeans. He still can't tell if he's being judged or not, if Zayn's lack of inflection is meant to be mocking or teasing.

Neither, probably. Far more likely that Liam's brain is getting the better of him. That Zayn has been brought up to a secluded chalet on the side of a mountain for what he didn't know was going to be alone time with Mr. Buckner. That, on discovering the subterfuge, he isn't be able to leave. Liam imagines that would make his voice sound rather flat as well.

Liam points toward the logs just a few feet from the grate. "There's plenty where that came from. Just drop another one on if it gets low. Or I can do it for you."

Zayn nods. "Sure."

"There's no TV or internet," Liam says. "Mrs. Buckner–" He pauses, looking for a flinch, but Zayn's face doesn't change. "Well. Seclusion. You know."

Zayn does finally react, after a couple of seconds in which he's probably waiting for a punch line. He sighs. "Thank god for the hot tub, right?"

Liam smiles. "Yeah. Hours of fun and dehydration."

"Right."

When it becomes apparent Zayn isn't interested in playing nice any longer, Liam makes himself scarce. The chalet wasn't built to house a staff, but there are a couple more modest rooms tucked out of the way behind the kitchen, across from the laundry. It's just not the sort of house someone lives in without occasional help. The kitchen isn't professional grade because Mr. or Mrs. Buckner particularly enjoy cooking, and the stairs don't sweep themselves.

He pulls his boots off and settles himself in on the bare twin mattress. He plays 2048 on his phone for long enough to be aware that time has passed, which probably means he's been at it for more than an hour. He only lifts his head at all because he hears cupboard doors opening in the kitchen.

He just pokes his head out. If it's Mr. Buckner, Liam will go back to his game. Maybe ask if he intends to leave when Zayn does. If it's Zayn, he'll… try to draw him into more awkward conversation, most likely.

It's Zayn. He's got his boots kicked off as well. His socks, too, so that he's standing barefoot in the kitchen, going down the long line of upper cabinets. Plates and serving dishes and wine glasses. Against the bank of windows, his hips canted slightly out as he leans back, he looks like a finely cut silhouette. He looks like a photograph of someone's fantasy of a morning routine.

"Whatcha looking for?" Liam asks. He probably shouldn't take as much notice as he does of the way Zayn's shoulder jerks in surprise.

"Food." He opens yet another door. "How many dishes do people need? Do they host alumni associations when they're up here or something?"

Liam walks past him toward a set of narrow double doors on the other side of the fridge. "Pantry," he says.

He's pretty sure Zayn doesn't actually want to know what the Buckners do up here. He's certain Zayn doesn't care. If he did, he wouldn't use the plural as easily as all that, would he? If he gave a damn about there being a Mrs. Buckner and three kids almost Liam's age, he wouldn't be here at all.

Liam leans against the fridge and watches him rifle through the non-perishables, and if he feels like a creep for it, well, he's in good company. Mr. Buckner is an ass for bringing Zayn up here, for lying about the circumstances. But Zayn's a jerk for agreeing to come with him, company or no. Liam saw the way Mr. Buckner touched him. That, at least, was consensual.

Zayn comes up with a box of popcorn and waggles it to make sure there's any inside, like he couldn't tell from the weight of the box.

Liam points toward the microwave.

"You want to watch a movie?" Zayn asks as he scans the rows of buttons. "I brought my laptop."

"Sure."

Zayn finds the wine, Liam dumps the popcorn into a bowl, and they sit on the couch while Zayn trawls through his hard drive for something they both want to watch. His laptop has a Green Lantern sticker on it and he has all the Marvel movies in 1080p. They start at the beginning, which Liam takes as evidence enough that Zayn knows he'll be staying for a while.

Mr. Buckner comes down the stairs when Tony calls to tell Rhodey that it's not a drone, it's him, it's a suit. Liam moves immediately to get up, to get the hell out of dodge, because whatever is going to happen right now is not something he wants to be involved in. But Zayn drops the popcorn bowl in his lap and hauls himself up off the couch instead.

Liam stares at the nape of his neck as he goes up the stairs, Mr. Buckner a few steps behind him.

He doesn't pause the movie, but he hears bits and pieces anyway, more Mr. Buckner than Zayn, whose voice is a murmur with a heavy wood door and this much distance between them. Mr. Buckner uses words like "obstinate" and "impertinent" and "hissy fit" at a volume that travels perfectly well. The sound of that heavy door slamming is even louder.

Liam's not surprised to see Zayn coming back down the stairs, carrying his suitcase this time. He leaves it on the floor by the newel post.

"Do you want me to rewind?" Liam asks as Zayn drops down beside him again.

"Don't worry about it," Zayn says. He grabs a handful of popcorn. Liam thinks he's referring to more than the movie, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

Later, there's only a splash of wine left in the bottom of the bottle, Zayn has his arm across the back of the couch behind Liam's shoulders, and Tony is dying of palladium poisoning.

"How can this not be your favorite one?" Zayn asks. He sounds a bit disgusted.

Liam shrugs. "I liked the third one more. Exploding super soldiers. Come on."

"But DUM-E died," Zayn argues. "And no Justin Hammer. I love Justin Hammer."

"Of _course_ you do," Liam says, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Zayn turns to smile at him. It's almost nerve-wracking, having his attention. Being aware of the angle of his head, the heat of his arm, the smell of his aftershave.

Even later, into their second bottle of wine, after Thor's been sedated and Zayn has made an appreciative noise over Chris Hemsworth's bare ass. Liam gets up to add another log to the fire and Zayn pauses the movie to follow him up.

"What's this? Thor's worth pausing for but Iron Man isn't?" Liam asks.

Zayn laughs, which is really the only appropriate response to that kind of lunacy. "No. Are you kidding? Iron Man is the best," he says. "My ass is asleep from the couch."

Liam has nothing to say to that except to point out that, so far as best Avenger goes, "Cap should get an honorable mention."

"We aren't there yet," Zayn says, waving it away. "Go get blankets. I want to lay down."

He gets blankets from the linen closet upstairs and, when he comes back down, Zayn has pulled the cushions off the couch and chairs to make a palette in the space between the fireplace and the coffee table. Liam has never been aware of the gap before. It can't be more than five feet. He helps Zayn gather pillows.

"Why don't more people shit themselves over Heimdall?" Zayn asks, once they've settled in. They're laying on their stomachs with their chins propped up, laptop on the floor. Zayn's arm nudges Liam's every time he dips his hand into the refilled popcorn bowl.

"Whatdya mean?"

"I mean Loki launched a million boners, lady and otherwise. Idris Elba doesn't deserve that kind of love?"

Liam snorts. "He wore a helmet the whole time. I'm sure plenty of people got boners in the second one, when he took it off."

"Maybe," he says. He makes a low, thoughtful noise. "Which would you go for? The stoic, noble type or the mischievous type?"

"Loki wasn't mischievous. He was murderous."

"Well, you know. In for a penny, in for a pound," Zayn says. In his periphery, Liam can make out the shape of his smile.

"I don't like that saying," Liam admits, shifting his weight up onto his elbows to reach for the wine bottle near the table, on the far side of Zayn. Zayn makes a noise that's not quite complaint at the sudden intrusion.

"You don't have to tell me about commitment phobia," Zayn says.

Liam shakes his head. "It's not that. It's just– an excuse, you know? To continue to do something stupid or dangerous after you realize it is. It's such a cop-out. There's nothing wrong with, like, situation assessment."

Zayn doesn't respond immediately. It's not quiet silence, because on screen there are Asgardian shenanigans going on, but it still feels tense. Zayn's already looking at him when Liam glances over to gauge his reaction.

"So Heimdall, then," Zayn says. He's smiling soft and closed-lipped, and Liam tips onto his side to drink out of the bottle, to protect himself. Zayn takes it from him when he's done, holding it up to the light.

Liam's not going to get a better opportunity for this, or he isn't patient enough to craft one, so he just asks: "Are you sleeping with Mr. Buckner?"

Zayn half swallows a cough. Wine dribbles down his chin before he can catch it with his sleeve. He gasps. "Warn a guy," he says. His scowl is too strong to be completely real.

Liam shrugs a little. "I'm not judging."

"The hell you aren't."

Zayn is cold-shouldered beside him now, the point of his jaw sharp as he clenches his teeth. Liam can't quite bring himself to look back at the movie and pretend this didn't happen, even though that's certainly what Zayn wants, even though they probably won't make it to Captain America now.

"I'm just surprised," Liam says, because Zayn's not going to offer him anything except the stiff line of his mouth. "I don't understand. I mean, he's–" ~~Old.~~ ~~Married.~~ ~~A lying prick.~~ "And you're–" ~~Gorgeous.~~ ~~Amazing.~~ ~~Perfect.~~ "Wonderful."

Zayn snorts. "I'm hot," he says. "That's only an advantage if you use it."

He looks at Liam just out of the corner of his eye, so that the length of his lashes and the cut of his cheekbone is obvious. Like he's proving a point. Like he knows just how powerful the strength of his profile is. He'd be an idiot not to.

"Okay," Liam agrees. "You're hot. But why _him_?" He sounds a bit more aggressive than he'd meant to, but he can't help it. He can't imagine Zayn with Mr. Buckner. No, it's worse than that – he can imagine it, and his stomach roils when he does.

"A bottle of wine and Robert Downey Jr. don't make us friends. You don't get to demand things from me," Zayn says.

"I'm curious."

"You're puking it," Zayn snaps. "Shut up and watch the movie."

"I just want to know," Liam says, and when Zayn groans and kicks his blanket off to stand up, Liam sits up but he doesn't follow. He stays down. "You came here with him, but you thought there would be other people here. So it's not a sex thing. Or not only a sex thing. Right? 'Cause why would you care– why would he have to lie to get you here, if you were sleeping with him?"

"Finished, Miss Marple?"

In outline, standing over him, all of Zayn's angles are so sharp, his planes so straight. He looks brittle, fragile, hollow-boned like a bird. Right now it's hard to believe he possesses all those soft curves Liam's been admiring for hours – the nape of his neck, the pink swell of his mouth, the elongated sweep of bone and muscle from his armpit to his waist.

"Yes," Liam says. He rubs a hand over his hair. He aches. "Sorry. It's none of my business."

Zayn finishes the last of the wine before he climbs back onto their nest. He makes a show of pulling the blanket up over his back. He sighs when he sees they've missed a whole Heimdall scene.

Liam lays down on his stomach again, their shoulders brushing, and when Zayn doesn't move away it feels like forgiveness. Like getting a pass, anyway. He'll take it.

Later still, after Captain America has frozen and been revived, when all of Zayn's curves and planes are angled toward Liam, they kiss laying down. Zayn's mouth is salty at the corner from popcorn and a little sour with wine. He huffs a laugh when Liam's tongue skirts at the roof of his mouth, not the last ticklish spot Liam will find on him.

Zayn jerks him off under the blanket, shirt rucked up around his ribs and jeans pushed down to his knees. Liam expected him to be more filthy-mouthed but his encouragements are mostly wordless, breathed against skin of his neck and his shoulder and into the corner of his mouth. When Liam comes he grips hard at Zayn's waist. Zayn licks a stripe of come off of his hand and Liam pins him down with his weight to kiss him again.

He blows Zayn with his shoulders propped up against the hard edge of the coffee table and his hands in Liam's hair. Zayn groans quiet expletives the whole time, and the pressure of his fingers at the back of Liam's skull are all the encouragement he needs to _do that again, just, ahh_. Zayn comes and Liam smears a sticky kiss to the black heart tattooed on his hip.

They go to separate bathrooms to clean up.

Liam trades his jeans and hoodie for joggers and a thermal henley. He brushes the slime of come out of his mouth. He half expects Zayn to have retreated upstairs for the night, but when he gets back to the den he's pushes the cushions back together and has piled another blanket on.

Liam puts another log on the fire.

"Avengers?" he asks.

Zayn snorts. "Like you have to ask."

Zayn falls asleep ten minutes in, laying on his belly, arm curled under his head. Liam could watch more, but there doesn't seem like much of a point, without Zayn's opinions overlapping the dialogue. Liam's seen it a half dozen times.

It takes him a while to get comfortable, to find a spot that won't wind him up on the floor, but once he does he's out almost immediately.

Early, Liam wakes up to the sound of someone in the kitchen, the beep of the coffee pot being turned on. He knows where he is. He never has trouble remembering where he went to sleep. But for a bleary moment he assumes it's Zayn making coffee. It takes him a few seconds of staring at the ceiling, brain warming up, to realize that Zayn's still right beside him. That Zayn's toes are pressed into his ankle. That Zayn's breathing is still in the dependable cadence of the deep sleeper.

He considers pretending to still be asleep, but he doesn't consider it for long.

He pads into the kitchen in his socks. He can feel how messed up his hair is without having to see it. He thinks he might have a love bite on his neck.

What Mr. Buckner thinks, Mr. Buckner keeps to himself but, judging by the way he takes his coffee and retreats back upstairs, he's finally bothered.

 

It warms up enough in the afternoon to knock the edge off of the snow that fell the day before. It's still treacherous on the back roads, and it'll freeze again overnight into a dangerous crust of ice, but Liam drives them both back to the station that evening. Zayn sits in the front seat this time, looking out the window. Mr. Buckner stays quiet.

On the platform, Zayn cups Liam's jaw in his palm and kisses him slow and wet. He pulls away laughing when Liam tickles the roof of his mouth. Liam only reels him in once, twice more before the train comes.


End file.
